Maria Kokhno, a campaigner for eating disorder victims, went public with a desperate plea for medical help for the teens who were at risk of "dying at home", according to The Mirror.

As a result the girls were raced to a hospital in Moscow and Kokhno said while their mother kept trying to get them help, they were repeatedly rejected.

TV channel Moscow24 showed Kokhno with the girls as they entered the hospital and quoted a doctor saying the medical task “is to rescue them from a condition when their heart may stop beating at any moment”.